


Virgil

by sadbabyosborn (arka_r)



Series: Role Reversal AU [1]
Category: Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, Humor, Light Angst, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 23:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2892008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arka_r/pseuds/sadbabyosborn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, don’t people use virgil oil for cooking?” Nova taunted between blasts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virgil

**Author's Note:**

> first time i posted a role reversal AU drabble ~~and first time i finished one actually~~
> 
> for those who followed [my tumblr](http://sadbabyosborn.tumblr.com) probably knows about my role reversal AU. you probably will need to read [my tag](http://sadbabyosborn.tumblr.com/tagged/villain-AU) for this but to make it short, the heroes (spider man, nova, white tiger, power man, iron fist, the avengeres, and SHIELD) are villains, while sinister six (in this AU they are iron patriot, doc oc, lizard, electro, rhino, and black cat) are the heroes. since i like to mix verses, this is a mix between USM and TASM because i love felicia and gwen XD
> 
> this is also a racebend fic because fuck canon, that's why. harry and norman are black. peter is biracial (indian descent from richard and white from mary). otto is jew.
> 
> anyway this note is getting longer, so enjoy!

“Hey Webs, look at this.”

 

“What is it, Bucket-Head? If it’s another cat video, I swear I will—”

 

“No, no, it’s not! I swear you gonna like this.”

 

“Wait, isn’t it SHIELD files about Sinister Six?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Wait… Is that…?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Ooooh. This is so going to be useful.”

 

\--

 

Norman Osborn didn’t know what he had done in the past to deserve… this. He thought he was being fairly good, considering his upbringing. He had worked hard after school and finished college in double major. He had had a sweet wife and had an equally sweet son. He used to be a loving father and he was a caring father. He donated to the poor. He attended charity galas. He stopped villains’ villainous schemes to take over the world. He stopped bank robberies. He helped old ladies to cross the street.

 

Yet, he had to suffer headache about this. ‘This’ namely his arch nemesis, the vile and villainous Spider Man, whose sole purpose in life was to annoy the hell out of him. The masked villain loved small yet obnoxiously annoying villainy like hanging elderly people on high places or tripping pedestrians with his webs. Of course it was Norman’s duty as the national hero, Iron Patriot, to take those elderlies down or to make sure that the sidewalks were free of webs. However, it wasn’t as annoying as Spider Man’s other ‘hobby’.

 

The villain _loved_ to kidnap his son. His sweet, lovely son, Harry.

 

By ‘loved’, he meant Spider Man would kidnap his son _at least_ once in two days. More, if the villain was feeling like being obnoxiously annoying. Sometimes he would snatch Harry on the way to and/or from school, the other times he would break into Harry’s school and take him away. Sometimes Spider Man would send out ransom notes, but most of the times he didn’t.

 

Of course, Norman had done many precautions to keep Harry safe, from inserting tracker under the skin on Harry’s wrist to placing Electro to guard his son. The tracker always almost worked, unless Spider Man decided to take Harry to Triskelion, an evil organization SHIELD’s headquarters, which of course was equipped with jammer and thus disabling the tracker’s signal; but Electro was so god damn useless as bodyguard and got easily distracted by smallest things.

 

It became almost a routine for him to chase the spandex-clad villain in his Iron Patriot suit. It was what he was doing right then. Spider Man was carrying his son in fireman style while swinging through the forest of skyscrapers of New York City. Norman could take Spider Man down by simply shooting heat-seeking missile to the wall-crawling menace, but he hesitated to do so as he was afraid he would hit Harry by accident.

 

“Surrender, Spider Man!” Norman shouted at the fleeing villain. Spider Man paused his swinging, choosing to stick at one of the skyscrapers’ wall.

 

“Or what you gonna do, _Virgy?_ Shoot me?” the villain taunted.

 

Norman paused in his track, hovering in the air and feeling cold inside. _Did he just…?_

 

He was too stunned to move, though thankfully his AI in his suit helped him to stay in the air, lest he would plummet straight to the ground. Images of years of taunting and cruel words flashed in his eyes. When he noticed the warning flashing on his HUD, it was already too late. The next second he came to his senses, Spider Man’s sidekick Nova blasted right into him and sent him crashing _through_ the skyscrapers. He landed flat on his back over the hard asphalt, feeling momentarily breathless from the sheer force of it.

 

“IP, you okay?” Black Cat’s voice came from the comm. She sounded honestly worried, which was quite unusual of her.

 

Norman tried to move and gasped. “My back.”

 

For your information, Norman wasn’t _that_ young to be thrown five blocks away and brushing it off as if nothing, even if he was thrown inside his Iron Patriot suit. _Especially_ when he was thrown inside his Iron Patriot suit.

 

“Should I book an appointment with your usual chiropractor, Sir?” his suit’s AI, KARI, asked sweetly; almost too sweet that Norman could hear sarcasm dripping from her voice. How an AI made from strings of binaries could pull that sarcastic tone so flawlessly, he would never know.

 

“KARI, I thought we talked about your sass”, Norman grunted as he tried to stand up again. “And yes. Make it today’s 8 p.m.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sir”, KARI answered in what Norman swore would be a sing-song.

 

Norman rolled his eyes as he kicked his repulsors on. Spider Man was already gone, but Nova was still around and shooting blasts of energy at him. Norman avoided them easily.

 

“Hey, don’t people use virgil oil for cooking?” Nova taunted between blasts. That alone was almost enough to send him into another skyscrapers.

 

He would flay whoever responsible for this… this _mockery_.

 

But then he remembered that he was a _superhero_ ; superheroes didn’t flay people.

 

At least without civilians within range, he could shoot Nova. He did just that, sending a couple of heat-seeking missiles at Nova. Since Nova’s power was made of… well, _heat_ … he was attracting the missiles like moths to Vegas neon lights. Norman smiled to himself as his missiles blasted Nova to the ground.

 

“That is _virgin_ oil, you dunderhead. But then again, I don’t expect you to have some… _brain_ … under that stinking helmet of yours”, Norman laughed at the downed villain before flying away, letting Doc Oc to take care of Nova.

 

Time to continue chasing Spider Man. The only blessing from this situation was that Harry’s tracker thankfully still worked perfectly. It showed as a blip moving on his radar. Apparently, Spider Man was still carrying his son; his poor, innocent son. Harry had to be terrified at the situation he was in.

 

Harry had been afraid of height since as far Norman could remember. 

 

Norman remembered with a grimace; the sweet young boy that was his son clutching at his side when he took him for a ferris wheel ride, was the very same boy Spider Man was carrying as the villain swung at vertigo-inducing height and speed.

 

Enraged at this, Norman kicked the repulsor to add his speed. Soon enough he could spot red and blue of Spider Man’s ridiculous outfit a few hundred meters away. Finally cornered with no other high places to stick his webs at, Spider Man landed on the top of a crane over the Hudson, with Harry still slung over his shoulders. His son, fortunately, was still struggling in Spider Man’s grip and not fainting from the swinging across half Manhattan. It seemed that Harry’s punches and kicks did not affect Spider Man at all.

 

“Release my son, Spider Man”, Norman activated the pods on his shoulders and arms, aiming at the villain in threatening manner. He was not going to actually shoot the villain, but it wasn’t like Spider Man knew that.

 

“Aww, you sure, Virgy? It’s pretty up high here”, Spider Man said in singsong voice.

 

“Don’t call me that!” Norman shot the arm missiles, aiming it around, but not precisely right on, Spider Man; hoping that it would be enough to threaten the villain. However, Spider Man webbed the missiles and threw them all straight into the water.

 

“What the hell, Dad?! Don’t shoot me too!” Harry shouted from over Spider Man’s shoulder.

 

“Yeah, Virgy! What if I dropped your _cuteasabutton_ son by accident?” Spider Man added.

 

Spider Man _really_ lived to annoy the hell out of him, Norman decided. He let out loud roar and shot towards Spider Man, causing the villain to yelp and leap upwards. Norman realized a split second too late that in order to dodge him, Spider Man had dropped Harry.

 

Two things happened at once: he hit Harry instead, and his leg thrusters went kaput. Both of them plummeted forty feet down and landed at the cold Hudson River below.

 

In his panicked state, Norman realized that his Iron Patriot suit was a dead-weight; but then again, he still had oxygen supply for at very least ten minutes. Harry didn’t have it and would drown in under one minute, so Norman released his son from his grip and watched as Harry floated to the surface.

 

Otto fished him out of the water around five minutes later.

 

\--

 

“I’m busy, Otto”, Norman replied offhandedly. It was true; he was busy repairing his Iron Patriot suit. What if there was another villain attacks? He definitely was not running away from his son.

 

Harry got six broken ribs and a hell of bruises on his torso from the impact with the Iron Patriot suit. Not only that, he also got hypothermia and a hell of flu from his short swim on the river _during_ snow day. Curt was not amused. Harry was an extremely difficult patient, mostly because he whined. A lot.

 

He heard Otto’s mechanical arms chirped disapprovingly (and how did that even work?) and the next second, he was up in the air. “Hey!”

 

“Harry _demanded_ to see you and maybe you’re not there, but he’s not being an extremely nice patient and Curt is seconds away from going Lizard”, Otto explained as he lumbered off the lab, Norman still hanging on one of his mechanical arms.

 

“There. Go talk, you two”, he dumped Norman on the floor next to the bed. “Be nice.”

 

Norman climbed up to his feet and glared at his treacherous teammate as Otto slammed the door to Harry’s room. Swearing that he would dock Otto’s pay later on, he turned to face his son who rolled his eyes when he finally realized that Norman was in the room.

 

“Gee, thank you for visiting, Dad”, Harry sniped, though how he managed to sound sarcastic with voice like a bullfrog, Norman would never know.

 

“How are you, son?” Norman asked stiffly, pulling  a chair and sat on it.

 

“Sore”, Harry replied, then added. “But better than last night.”

 

Norman was always a hugging type of person, but Harry looked pained and miserable, his chest bandaged in tight cast and nose red and leaking. Instead, he settled with placing his hand cautiously over Harry’s one and rubbed circles on the palm in what he hoped was comforting manner.

 

“You weren’t fighting like yourself, Dad. Why was that, anyway?” Harry sniffed and rubbed his nose, causing it to redden even more. Norman plucked a tissue from the bedside and twisted one end of it.

 

“Here, stuff this in your nose”, he offered it to Harry, who did just that obediently. Seriously, how in the world that Curt could say this small angel was being irritating patient?

 

“I look ridiculous”, Harry groaned, his voice muffled.

 

“But you won’t be rubbing your nose anymore. It’s already too red you can replace Rudolph.”

 

Harry laughed, but stopped immediately, letting out a long pained groan. Norman rubbed his son’s hand pityingly.

 

“Well…?” his son asked expectantly.

 

Well, darn. He hoped Harry would just forget it already.

 

“I…” Norman started. “… don’t like my name. Norman Virgil Osborn, that’s my name. And children… can be exceptionally cruel when they wanted to.”

 

Harry rolled his eyes. “Well, duh. We’re on the same boat on that. Who named their son _Theopolis_ anyway?”

 

“Me”, Norman replied. “And it’s a good name. It’s an ancient name for Antakya.”

 

“Yeah? But kids don’t know that. All they know is that I have weird name. Why do you think I insisted on using Harry instead of Harold?” Harry ended his rant with a huff. 

 

“I didn’t know you got bullied at school…” Norman tried to remember when and how could did that happen. All that he remembered Harry’s first day of school, his backpack bouncing as he ran to his dad who was waiting for him at the gates and talking a hundred miles per hour about how fun school was—but that was his only memory about Harry talking about his school.

 

“You were… kind of distraught after Mom died”, Harry muttered.

 

Ah. Of course that was why. His wife, Emily, died not long after Harry got into school. Years after her death, he spent in burying himself in his work, building his empire brick by brick by using his own hands, just to get his mind off his sorrow of losing the one he loved the most.

 

It wasn’t until he went home late after his first run as Iron Patriot and saw Harry sleeping in front of the fire, waiting for him to get home, that he realized it; Norman Osborn might’ve lost a wife, but Harry had lost a mother… and was about to lose a father too, if not physically then emotionally.

 

“I’m sorry…” he whispered.

 

“Forgiven. Besides, you’re kind of changed ever since”, Harry placed a hand on top of Norman’s, smiling. “Come to think of it, Grandfather must’ve had the best intention when he named you.”

 

Norman cast his eyes down. He sincerely doubted that Amberson Osborn had the best intentions in mind when he named his son. His own father was the reason why he was hesitant to have his own child, those years ago when he only married Emily; and the sole reason to be a better father for Harry.

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“How was he like, though? He died before I was born, right?” Harry turned his head to face him.

 

“He was… business was not kind for us black people at that time, so he… drank a lot. I… I do not wish to talk about him”, Norman turned away.

 

All those memories of his childhood flickered into life; the beatings, the shouts, the nasty smell of cheap alcohols… but the worst thing was the dark, empty room he was locked in. If it wasn’t the warmth of Harry’s hand on his, he would be thinking that he was back at that dark place.

 

“Oh… Wow, I didn’t know about that, Dad. I’m sorry…” Harry whispered. Norman turned to face his son, his beautiful son, and smiled.

 

“Don’t be”, he told his son. “Anyway, your maternal grandparents were kind to me. They used to invite me for dinner from times to times, even before I married your mother.”

 

Harry looked up at that. “Oh? How were they like?”

 

“Your grandfather used to invite me for fishing where he then would teach me a bit about business. Your grandmother used to knit all my sweaters and fuss over me, a trait that your mother also shared”, Norman ended with an exaggerated eye roll, then added as an afterthought. “She also loved cats.”

 

Harry loved cats too, just like Emily used to be. After the gap between them mended, Harry liked to ask about her, simple things like things that she loved, her favorite CD’s… though he was being tentative at first since Norman couldn’t even talk about her without crying. He particularly found the fact that his mother loved cats funny, as he never actually had the chance to know her better and yet he loved the same thing with her.

 

Norman, who was allergic of felines, couldn’t even understand how in the blazes he attracted so many cat lovers into his life. Harry seemed to understand what he was thinking, because his son was grinning cheekily.

 

“See? Not my fault that I like cats. It must be genetic”, then Harry pulled on that kicked puppy look flawlessly that made Norman twitch cautiously. “Come oooonn, Daaaad. It’s all I want for Christmas. I won’t let it loose on common areas. In fact, we can turn one room just for the cat, so you don’t have to suffer the furball.”

 

Perhaps it was the bandage and his big red nose, but Harry looked _utterly_ miserable that Norman couldn’t help but sigh.

 

“Fine”, he grumbled, finally. “Just one.”

 

Harry’s face exploded into a huge, _huge_ smile; so Norman hastily added, “But you _will_ brush your clothes free of fur if you want to stand within three feet radius from me.”

 

“Deal!” Harry whooped, then groaning loudly as he remembered that he still had _broken ribs_.

 

\--

 

Otto helped Norman to get the feline. It was a three-legged, overweighted furball with wide yellowish eyes. On Christmas day, Harry was ecstatic and promptly named the cat Virgo.

 

“It’s called reclaiming, Dad. Turning bad memories into good memories”, his son reasoned in low mutter. Six feet away, Max and Alex were tearing off the wrappings of their own presents. Norman’s middle name was still a secret to the Sinister Six… which was great, since Norman couldn’t imagine what Max would do with the knowledge. It was bad enough that Spider Man and Nova knew.

 

“I don’t see how a gigantic ball of fur with a potential to make me sneeze to death is good memories”, he rubbed his nose. It was starting to redden already.

 

“Aw, but he’s so cute”, Harry cooed and nuzzled the cat on its chubby face. Then, he put it down and hugged Norman tightly. “Thanks for the gift, Dad. It really means a lot to me.”

 

Norman smiled and accepted the hug a bit stiffly before returning it, patting his son’s back a few times. Then, when his nose started to itch, he remembered.

 

“Son… You forgot to brush off.”

 

 


End file.
